BABY SOPHIA IS WITH JESUS Sophia fought hard, over­com­ing the diar­rhea, but devel­oped pneu­mo­nia on Sat­ur­day. Even with the best antibi­otics avail­able, her lit­tle body couldn’t fight off this killer ill­ness.  She went into severe res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress on Mon­day after­noon, and passed away a few hours lat­er. Thank you for your prayers for her, as she was such a sweet lit­tle girl. Our only com­fort is know­ing that she is in the arms of Jesus.

BABY BOY BENILDO JOINS OUR FAMILY Each Thurs­day is Infant For­mu­la Day. This means all the fam­i­lies in our milk pro­gram trav­el from their vil­lage to our mis­sion so their infant can be weighed and giv­en their infant for­mu­la and a health check. Today, Baby Boy Benil­do pre­sent­ed with diar­rhea as well as a severe cough and res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion. Lat­er, his malar­ia test at the hos­pi­tal came back pos­i­tive. It is a mir­a­cle this lit­tle one sur­vived to get to us.

Baby Benil­do his 2nd day in hos­pi­tal. He’s look­ing much bet­ter today.

The lit­tle Granny who cares for him was over­whelmed for sure. The Granny lives over 35 km/21 miles from our mis­sion in a remote bush area. A very kind young man from the vil­lage, not a rel­a­tive, brought her in on his bicy­cle. One look at this infant, and I called the hos­pi­tal, telling them to expect us. Benil­do couldn’t even take a bot­tle due to his cough­ing. At the hos­pi­tal, an IV was start­ed with much dif­fi­cul­ty due to his tiny veins and severe dehy­dra­tion. He is 6 weeks old, but only weighs 3kg/6.6 lbs. Prop­er med­ica­tions were begun, and thank­ful­ly, he is respond­ing pos­i­tive­ly as of Fri­day. PRAYER GREATLY NEEDED FOR THIS LITTLE ONE, AS HE FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE.

RAINY SEASON STOPS MANY OF OUR PROGRAMS It has been a mud­dy mess of a week with all night rains that con­tin­ued into the day­time as well. Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary are the wettest months of the rainy sea­son, so we have to prac­tice a lot of patience dur­ing this time. Pro­grams get can­celed (BBC, con­struc­tion, plus children’s play time), or resched­uled due to mud­dy ground (food give outs).

Rainy sea­son has made a mess of our chil­dren’s play area.

Also, the start of school has been delayed due to severe flood­ing in some areas of the coun­try. Please note that the lack of pro­grams this week also means less pho­tos, since the chil­dren can’t play out­side. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR PRAYERS AND LOVE GIFTS. Bless­ings, Bush Bun­ny Bren­da Lange and the Bala­ma staff